


Annabel and Me

by Anonymous



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-02-04
Updated: 2006-02-04
Packaged: 2021-03-06 22:01:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 761
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26216077
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Relationships: Sirius Black/Remus Lupin
Collections: Anonymous





	Annabel and Me

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [The Week Like Hopscotch, Like Teapots, Like Us](https://archiveofourown.org/works/26215978) by Anonymous. 



Sirius’ flat is just big enough for two people. It’s empty though. Remus doesn’t promise a lot, maybe because he doesn’t keep them very well. Still said he’d stay, still promised anyways.

Remus is knocking on the door, once, twice, three times before Sirius picks himself off the floor where he mopes and answers it. Remus is invited in and not a word is said about moving in. They haven’t said anything at all about it really, but a year ago he promised and its now the first day of Freedom, and Sirius hasn’t seen even so much as an inclination to. He said he would.

Remus almost looks like he’ll greet Sirius with a kiss, but he doesn’t. They just sit on the sofa, second-hand, but still nice. It’s not the money, it’s the idea. Sirius could live better, eat well, but he doesn’t. After all, there’s no one else to take care of.

Sirius makes tea—he has to, really, what else is there to make him feel just as watered down and habitual when he and Remus talk so pleasantly? He pours it from his green tea kettle that makes Remus’ eyes light up and darken quickly after.  
“I know a teapot like that.”  
“You know a whole shop full of teapots like that,” Sirius says, with an edge he doesn’t entirely want to give away.

Remus stares at his feet for two seconds, possibly thinking about other things from last summer. Possibly he already had been.

“I don’t know,” Remus says, toneless, emotionless, plainly, and Sirius knows where this is going. But he loves him and will let him speak because at least it’s something. He’s wanted him to speak since last summer, but it was all supposed to be less melancholy.

“Everything just looks so bleak. I’ve got nothing,” Remus mumbles, still not looking at Sirius, anywhere but Sirius.  
“You’ve got me,” Sirius replies, feeling absolutely justified in his bitterness.

“Try what if…you can’t get a job no matter how hard you tried to qualify. And maybe you could, if your parents were rich. But they aren’t, they’re poor. Barely meeting ends as it is. You’ve maybe saved enough to support yourself for a month, and that’s it. Back to the streets, back to mum’s. And there’s no future. You thought you had one once, but it was never there. You got your two seconds of possibility before everyone said, ‘You can’t afford it. They won’t help you.’  
And you’re just, god, everything just seems to spell out that you may as well have been hit by that bus, or never tried, because for all you’ve put into it you’ve got a life in menial labour, living at your parents’ house, and ignored by those who once knew you, because they thought you had potential, and now this is your life. Not good enough. Take a guess why I haven’t mention moving in.”

“But I’ll support you! I’m already paying all the rent alone; I can afford to feed the two of us. It’s not a problem, if it’s about money,” Sirius says, having switched from bitter to a needy kind of imploring-ness. There’s no such thing as problems, if Remus moves in.  
“Yes it is Sirius, why does everyone refuse to see it? I’ve been cut off from any hope I had, I’m at least not going to live like a parasite.”  
“You would live off your parents though, if you had to. Because they’re your family, and families do that. I’m your family too, aren’t I? I love you, isn’t that good enough?”

He is now stroking Remus’ hand, trying to reach out through Remus’ skin into his veins and get into Remus’ head and tell him all the things that he should just accept, that he should take for granted, because Sirius is always going to be there, and he doesn’t need money or credit or control because of this, the person paying the bills doesn’t change anything. Just so long as his flat is a bit less like his sepulchre and his inheritance is put to good use. He said he would.

And finally Remus is worn down, and finally he says yes, and finally Sirius says, “Now,” like he has wanted to all along, and they are off rushing to Remus’ house faster than one could place the cracking noise as unusual, because there’s more than enough of the day left. But before they do that, Remus gives Sirius the kiss he set aside when he came.

This is Freedom.


End file.
